You paid a designer to build your website. But who actually owns it?

Too many small business owners discover the answer too late: the designer registered the domain under their own name, the hosting account is in the designer's email, and the only admin login belongs to them. Then the designer stops answering messages — and the owner faces weeks of delay, extra fees, or the total loss of their online identity. This is a documented, repeating pattern (see the public sources linked in the kit's "why this exists" file).

The Website Handover Control Kit gives you three things:

1. PREVENTION — 12 plain-language ownership clauses to put in your contract before you hire: the domain in your registrar account, hosting in your name, your own admin login, credentials shared from day one, and a no-hostage clause for payment disputes. Includes a copy-paste email to send your designer.

2. CLEAN HANDOVER — a 32-item handover credential checklist (domain, hosting, CMS, email & DNS, analytics, backups, licenses) where you verify every item yourself before paying the final invoice — plus a one-page credential vault template so every account lives in one place you control.

3. RECOVERY — a 6-phase take-back playbook for when control was already lost: document your evidence, send formal request letters (2 templates included), work the registrar dispute route, and know exactly when to involve a lawyer. Includes a recovery tracker and a fictional end-to-end worked example (a bakery owner recovering her domain in 6 weeks).

Also inside: a 20-point post-handover audit with an auto-scoring spreadsheet, 7 FAQs, and an honest limits section.

IN 11 LANGUAGES: English (full) + Arabic, Mandarin, French, Spanish, Russian, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Hindi, Italian (core documents).

Honest limits: this is practical guidance, not legal advice. It cannot override a signed contract that assigns ownership to the designer, cannot force a registrar to act, and cannot guarantee timelines. What's inside is real, tested, and documented — no hype.